v very well for Stoppard to claim that he has mingled "scenes which are self- eviden tly documentary . . . with others which are just as evidently fantastica1." The trouble with his portrait of Joyce is that it is neither one thing nor the other, neither pure fantasy nor pure documentary, but is simply based on a false premise. When matters of high importance are being debated, it IS not pedantic to object that the author has failed to do his homework. Th d f " T ." . e secon act 0 ravestIes IS dominated by Lenin. Stoppard quotes him fairly and at length but cannot fit him into the stylistic framework of the play. Somerset Maugham once said that sincerity in society was like an iron girder in a house of cards. Lenin is the gird- er that topples "Travesties." Stoppard fleetingly considered making him the equivalent of Miss Prism, the governess in "The Importance"-"but that," he wisely concluded, "would have killed the play because of the trivialization." On the other hand, he did think it would be funny to start Act II with a pretty girl (Cecily) delivering a lecture on Lenin. "And indeed it was funny," he told an Interviewer, "except that I was the only person laughing." (I won- der, incidentally, what he found so comic about the idea of a pretty girl taking Lenin seriously.) At all events, the lecture stayed in, funny or not, to- gether with the ensuing scenes, which deal with Lenin and his plans for revo- lution. Too frail a bark to bear such weighty cargo, the play slowly capsizes and sInks. A footnote from Derek Marlowe: "With Tom, words always precede thoughts Phrases come first, ideas later. The Stoppard you find in 'Travesties' doesn't sound any older than the Stop- pard of 'Rosencrantz and GuIld en- stern.' You'd think that nothing had happened to him in the intervening seven years. But, by God, a great deal has " 1\ FTER "Travesties," a literary cir- .n. cus of a play in which historical figures jumped through hoops at the flick of Stoppard's whim, it was clear that he had spent long enough in the library. The time had come to turn his attention to events in the outside world. Not unexpectedly, the field he chose to explore was the treatment of political dissiden ts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. FIrst, however, he had to fulfill an obligation to Ed Berman. Berman IS an expatriate American, bursting with bearded enthusIasm, who came to London in 1968 and set up a coöperative organization called Inter- Action, which presents plays in schools, remand homes, youth clubs, mental hospitals, community centers, and the streets. Inter-Action also runs a thriv- ing farm in the dingy heart of a Lon- don suburb and launched the Almost Free Theatre, in Soho, where the price of admission is whatever you think the show will be worth. Berman produced the world premIères of two one-acters by Stoppard ("After Magritte," in 1970, and "Dogg's Our Pet," the fol- lowing year), and not long afterward Stoppard, learning that Berman had applied for British citizenship, promised to give him a new play if the application was successful. It was, and "Dirty Linen," Stoppard's deadpan farce about sexual misconduct in the House of Commons, opened at the Almost Free Theatre in April, 1976. It was an instant hit. The Czech emigré had done honor to his American counterpart, welcoming him to membership in the Western Europe- an club. Simple chronology may be the best way to set out the convergence that subsequen tly developed between the lives, and careers, of Stoppard and V á- clav Havel. August, 1 976: Stoppard addresses a rally in T rafalgar Square sponsored by the Committee Against Psychiatric Abuse, from which he joins a march to the Soviet Embassy. There he attempts to deliver a petition denouncing the use of mental homes as punishment camps for Russian dissidents. "The chap at the door wouldn't accept it," he told me afterward, "so we al1 went home." October 5, 1976: Havel celebrates his fortieth birthday at the converted farmhouse, ninety miles from Prague, w here he and his wife live. The next day, he is officially ordered to quit the place, on the ground, patently false, that it is unfit for human habitation. January 11, 1977: "Dirty Linen" opens on Broadway, to generally fa- vorable reviews. Walter Kerr, in his Sunday column In the New York Times, sounds one of the few discord- an t notes: Intellectually restless as a humming- bird, and just as incapable of lighting anywhere, the playwright has a gift for making the randomness of his Rights funny. . . . Busy as Mr. Stoppard's mind is, it is also lazy; he will settle for the first thing that pops into his head.... Wide-ranging as his antic interests are, delightful as his impish mismatches can occasionally be, his management of them is essentially slovenly. One speech that gets an unfailing ovatIon, however, IS the following trib- 107 !Æ 1în Cetv4$ 4nG ør;r 6dJr'!J lf3ø -t,tn, øQ116 ft1lf!ll/ll/tlj, 5fmøÚet4':!J 1 lIJh6 WaPe$ · catR aM ftJtefæd .JS'Karat'Y þÚ'/jJ ff ftr; ð::4IJídø-. 12 6 55t111tS set I/41dIÞ çÚampnÆ;. ttCfpgaMr .4ðcarat". Ø'G40. · iJuPjed" .reØb øaiø . di--auJf1/ 2 'Úmø aduab ízø-'. !P" '!freø, 4V red tI1f! .gize :Ataß:;ac ett5 ".eø :pWM8 .uU5%/af @1grr. ? .. .y , " 'n " I ' " " p "Jt .y, - N-" -:4 "'.... .t... #'" ... -" I * - 4. I J: 'N: <-"_..... . >> *" ,. f, ) >, 11 ..ojO - 'yW. .; /' , r ' ..... " ?- '1 .. .f .. _ 't ,....... f , ( -A ' i ") J Boston's grande dame requests your presence for the weekend. 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